DEATH PENALTY IS UNLAWFUL, RULES JUDGE

AN AMERICAN judge ruled yesterday that the federal death penalty was
unconstitutional because some innocent people were being killed.

The ruling, the first since the federal death penalty was reintroduced in
1988, came shortly after the US Supreme Court tightened restrictions on
capital punishment and suggests that the American judicial system is
increasingly reconsidering the application of the death penalty. Public
support for capital punishment has declined from 80 per cent in 1994 to 65
per cent in 2001, largely because of DNA tests showing that death row
inmates were innocent.

Judge Jed Rakoff, of the US District Court in New York, said that his
decision was based on research showing that innocent people were being
executed with no chance of exoneration. The judge said that "on the one
hand, innocent people are sentenced to death with materially greater
frequency that was previously supposed and that, on the other hand,
convincing proof of their innocence often does not emerge until long after
their convictions".

His ruling related to two alleged drug-dealers who are to go on trial in
New York in September. Legal experts said that Judge Rakoff's ruling was
more important than the single case to which it referred because it
highlighted a shift in the nature of the debate. Since 1993, 12 death row
inmates have been released and found innocent after DNA testing. Two
states, Maryland and Illinois, have imposed moratoriums on the death
penalty pending reviews of the fairness of their legal systems.

Judge Rakoff, who is part of the third of the five tiers of the American
justice system, is not considered to be a particularly liberal judge. His
ruling is expected to face an appeal. If it were upheld, it could stop
federal executions in New York, Connecticut and Vermont.

In the United States there is a distinction between federal and state
punishments, but legal experts said that was not the important issue in
this ruling. "(It) is not about federal prisoners but about wrongly
convicted prisoners," Richard Dieter, of the Death Penalty Information
Centre, said.